I decided I wanted to start a new thread just for tips on how to play Heroes of the Storm for those that are trying to get Graves. A lot of people seem interested and some are posting that they are bad at it. Some of this will be pulled from other posts and some of it will be really frigging basic. If you have any other tips to add please chime in.

1) The minions (your and theirs) are dumb by design. They will attack each other and ignore you AEing them down and healing your side. The will march straight into the enemies cannons to die. They are there to die and let you farm exp.

2) The Cannons hurt but they target minions over heroes. Use #1 to kill off their minions so yours march in to die. When they do you can get some shots off on the enemy cannons but be prepared to run when they finish off your minions. If you do this enough they will run out of ammo (you'll see a bomb with a circle and a slash through it when this is the case) and you can safely and usually fairly easily kill them off at this point.

3) Once you get through the cannon/wall you can usually kill of their healing well while being safely out of range of cannons. This is usually a good idea as those cannons should have a pretty fresh load of ammo and full health. Takes away their quick option for healing for their heroes and makes them retreat further to heal. Repeat the same process as above and you can slowly work your way forward toward your ultimate goal which is as dumb as the cannons you've been playing with but it doesn't run out of ammo.

4) AI heroes aren't much smarter than their minions. They are pretty predicable and will almost always run when they get low health or when faced with a large group of your minions. Use this to push them back so you can get your minions to their cannons. A well timed stun or snare or big attack can let you finish a hero off but don't chase one of them into their cannons because it will hurt. You can use that strategy yourself to kill your opponents. For example diablo can pick up an opponent, flip them over his head stunning them with one move and then charge them and knock them back with another. If you are good you can use that to knock an enemy into your cannons which can kill them off. Stiches can eat an enemy and run them back into cannon range before spitting them out to die to cannons. I'm sure other heroes have other combos those are just some I know of off hand.

5) Levels. It's kinda confusing but there are 3 different "levels" that come into play in the game. There is your heroes level in the match which makes them more powerful and lets you choose talents at specific levels. Then there is the heroes level outside of the match which unlocks more talents/abilities for you to pick as you level up in a match. Finally there is your level which is what you need to get to level 20 to get graves.

6) Killing minions gives EXP. Killing heroes gives more EXP. EXP gets your hero levels for the match which makes you stronger and gets you talents. That is true for your opponents too. Don't leave a path (2 or 3 per map) empty as if no one is around minions killing each other doesn't get you exp. Worse there are probably AI Heroes helping kill off your minions and starting to do steps 1-3 to you. Don't die silly deaths, especially early. Chasing your opponent into their cannons and dying gives them a bunch of exp. If that happens too much they can get a level advantage on your team which can snowball. They are stronger and have earlier access to big talents meaning they are more likely to kill you off leading to more exp. If you can get ahead on EXP it can snowball your way too.

7) Try to keep the battles balanced. The enemy hero AI might be dumb but three on one is still and easy win for them. If they are attacking one lane heavily then your team needs to respond the same way. A group of 4 or 5 AI heroes can be a pretty tough thing as they will fight their way through your defenses and will kill single heroes off pretty easily. This can lead to the snowballing mentioned above. You need to have a sizable group go together to deal with this.

8) Using your mount and hearthstone. Don't be afraid to use z and b to mount up or hearth back to the nexus. Moving around quicker on your mount is a good thing so use it. Using your hearthstone will automatically heal up to around half and will quickly regen your health and mana. You are much better off hearthing back and then mounting up to run back to the battle than standing around not able to do much because you are out of mana or afraid of dying because you are low health.

9) Bosses, Bruisers, Bandits, etc. These are bigger versions of the minions but they are just as dumb. Make sure you are prepared for the camp. Once you've got some levels you may well be able to solo them but having a friend or two early on is a good idea. Even once you can solo them friends may still be a good idea as you can do it much quicker. Because they are just as dumb as other minions supporting them is a good idea. They'll happily attack the cannon with no ammo while the enemy heroes take them out. Protect them and help them and they'll be much more effective. The converse is true. The ones released by your opponents will do a lot less damage to your defenses if you show up to stop them. They can be an effective tool for a big push, especially when you get multiple camps at the same time or a camp and a map mechanic like Spiders or Garden Terror.

10) Map Mechanics. You know the silly extra stuff that is different on every map. Collecting coins, gems, skulls, etc. Don't ignore these. They all give different but pretty substantial bonuses to the side that gets them. No reason to let your opponents have them, especially the ai. For the coins/gems that you have to turn in keep that in mind. Don't run off and die without turning them in but at the same time don't stop and turn them in every time you get one of them as it does take some time to do the turn in. For the Garden of Terror and the Haunted Mines be careful about engaging the larger NPCs. They hit hard enough to be dangerous, have decent hps and can stun. They are perfectly setup to let you be easily killed off by an opponent while you are fighting them so make sure you've got friends and use that against the AI when you can.

11) Your hero. Everyone needs to find what will work for them but if you are just learning and just want to get through games to get graves I recommend a healer. There is always at least one in the free hero rotation. Try to pair up with someone else and just follow them around and heal. Try to stay behind them so you won't attract as much attention. This can be very simple and very effective if you've got someone good to heal. A ranged assassin can be played similarly. The melee classes can be powerful and fun but IMO they are the hardest and you are most likely to end up dying because you charge ahead into too much danger.

12) I recommend favoring passive talents over active ones. Active ones should be more powerful if nothing else because you can choose when the effect occurs but a slightly weaker passive ability is still much better than an active ability you never remember to use. Same goes for things like healing totems or other things that require proximity to be effective. That is hard to manage so I'd rather have a potentially slightly less effective passive bonus than a totem I forget to drop or ends up being near no one so doesn't heal for anything.

13) Game mode- Vs AI is going to be easier so you should win most of your games and you are much less likely to run into people who will behave poorly but it does give less EXP and has a cap on how much EXP you can get in a short time. If you've capped your AI exp or you've been playing someone and you feel fairly comfortable with them you can jump into a quick match to play verses other players which is better exp but you are more likely to lose and run into people who will be upset by that.

14) EXP bonuses- these apply to leveling up the hero and your character not leveling the hero during the match.a) 50% bonus for grouping with someone on your friend list. Lots of people here are posting looking for friends. You can also check the looking for group and then friend someone in the group you end up with.b) Stimpack- 100% bonus. Can be bought by itself or as part of a pack and you get one free when you hit level 10. Also gives extra gold.c) Launch event. 25% extra bonus right now. Will be 50% next week and 100% the week after that. These all stack and can help speed things up quite a bit.

15) You earn gold while doing stuff. Can be used to permanently unlock heroes if you like a particular one or for certain cosmetic things (skins/mounts/etc). You get 500 gold for each hero when you get that hero's level up to level 5. Not a bad idea to try out the different heroes in the free rotation and get the 500g from each of them.

If you prefer to only play vs. AI with AI team mates (so you don't have to interact with people at all) in order to get your bot team mates to help you, press G (default keybinds) and then click on a target on the minimap, for example a bruiser camp or an enemy hero or a tower, that way the bots on your team will come help you capture it.

That said, the vs. AI bots are pretty strong, and way more so than the ones used for the Training games, in some hero combinations they're even harder to defeat than actual players, so there's no need to feel bad if you lose.

Also, the longer a game takes (up to and beyond match-level 20) the more experience you earn once the game is over.

this is solid info for ppl just playing HotS for Graves. not all is ideal for playing the best way, but i like how your focus was for those who are only playing it for the pet.

a couple comments:

re: enemy minions & cannons targeting friendly minions before heroes, this is only if the friendly minions are first to get in range. so let your minions get in first and then follow in to save yourself getting hurt.

AI heroes aren't much smarter than their minions. They are pretty predicable and will almost always run when they get low health or when faced with a large group of your minions.

this is actually very smart, and it should be what you do too. even the top players know to run away when at low health. it is nearly always the smart move, especially late game when rez timer can be over a minute long.

if you are just learning and just want to get through games to get graves I recommend a healer. There is always at least one in the free hero rotation. Try to pair up with someone else and just follow them around and heal.

i have found it harder to do this that playing a dps or tank. i play a lot of healers in WoW, but healing in HotS is not the same. any HotS healer should be doing a fair bit of damage and CC too, so if you play a support (note they are not called "healers") i would suggest when possible take talents that buff your damage, not your healing. heal when you can, but if you are a "pocket healer" then you might not be helping as much as you could be.

one gameplay tip i'll add is body blocking. it is a crucial part of the game. if your teammate is running away at low health and is being chased (or fired on by ranged), get yourself in between your teammate and the enemy to help them escape. MFPallytime is sooooo good at this, and it made me want to do it as much as i can. even body blocking on mercenary camps or bosses can be huge. awesome gif example of Malfurion getting saved by Illidan bodyblock

thanks for this thread. your post is a good guide for people Graves farming, and hopefully others will add to it

Shakesbeard wrote:this is solid info for ppl just playing HotS for Graves. not all is ideal for playing the best way, but i like how your focus was for those who are only playing it for the pet.

a couple comments:

re: enemy minions & cannons targeting friendly minions before heroes, this is only if the friendly minions are first to get in range. so let your minions get in first and then follow in to save yourself getting hurt.

AI heroes aren't much smarter than their minions. They are pretty predicable and will almost always run when they get low health or when faced with a large group of your minions.

this is actually very smart, and it should be what you do too. even the top players know to run away when at low health. it is nearly always the smart move, especially late game when rez timer can be over a minute long.

Yeah standing there and dying is a bad idea because it gives the opponent exp and you end up waiting to rez. The AI tho will almost always run straight backwards to their defenses and almost never go someplace else which might actually be an easier way to get out of danger. On a lot of maps you can step into the bushes/smoke/what ever to hide and the minions will immediately stop attacking. Even the enemy AI doesn't chase you all that often.

if you are just learning and just want to get through games to get graves I recommend a healer. There is always at least one in the free hero rotation. Try to pair up with someone else and just follow them around and heal.

i have found it harder to do this that playing a dps or tank. i play a lot of healers in WoW, but healing in HotS is not the same. any HotS healer should be doing a fair bit of damage and CC too, so if you play a support (note they are not called "healers") i would suggest when possible take talents that buff your damage, not your healing. heal when you can, but if you are a "pocket healer" then you might not be helping as much as you could be.

Healing is different yes because everything has cool downs and you only have 1 base heal, at least in anybody I've played, but I've still found focusing on healing to be effective. Yes I still auto attack and ae minions and such. I'm sure in quick matches or even ladders you really do want to be doing quite a lot but vs ai you'll typically win as long as you aren't a hindrance to your team or doing something like feeding the other team. Ultimately tho go with what works for you. I've played all 4 types and gotten then all to hero level 5. I've even played "hard" characters up to level 5 and not made a fool of myself. I played tassadar for the first time last night and got him to level 5 with ravenhawk and some others and we won every game vs ai during that stretch. Overall I'd still say I feel most comfortable with healers(support).

one gameplay tip i'll add is body blocking. it is a crucial part of the game. if your teammate is running away at low health and is being chased (or fired on by ranged), get yourself in between your teammate and the enemy to help them escape. MFPallytime is sooooo good at this, and it made me want to do it as much as i can. even body blocking on mercenary camps or bosses can be huge. awesome gif example of Malfurion getting saved by Illidan bodyblock

thanks for this thread. your post is a good guide for people Graves farming, and hopefully others will add to it

That looks like a skill shot so the other thing that could have happened is Malfurion could have dodged it by running to the side a little bit too. Skill shots are aimed a direction rather than targeted at someone and they can and will miss completely if no one is there to hit.

posted this in the other graves thread but thought it was important so ill post it here too

short version: DONT BUY A STIMPACK (read last tip why)

I just got graves, some info:

-There is a 2 million exp daily cap on AI matches, so if you want to continue grinding you need to do quick matches that are pvp-Quick matches (pvp) give roughly DOUBLE the exp. I was getting about 125k per AI match and 250k per pvp match. - If you are losing all the time then join AI matches with real people not AI team mates, I mostly won as the AI is dumber than a team full of real people.- I really liked Hammer Tank, I bought her for 7k gold I had earned by playing and she was alot of fun nuking people from far away. I was regularly the top damage dealer of all my teams.- you can go to the shop and click on heroes and then "TRY" each hero to see how they play, even instantly levelling them up to unlock abilities to see what they do. Thats how I discovered the hammer tank and decided to buy her with the game gold I had earned

MOST IMPORTANT TIP RIGHT HERE:

- DONT BUY A STIMPACK, omg let me repeat, DONT BUY A STIMPACK. I was dumb and bought the 30 day stimpack, knew I was only going to play a few days but wanted the massive exp and gold bonus, so looked at stimpacks and the 7 day is $3.99 and the 30 day is 4.99 so thought wtf Ill just spend one more dollar and get the 30 day.... BUT!!!!! The starter pack is $4.99 and comes with 3 HEROES, a mount and a 7 day stimpack!!!! Plus at lv 10 I think you get a FREE 7 day stimpack, so if you buy the starter pack and then earn the extra stimpack you have 2 weeks of stimpacks plus ownership of 3 heroes.